Takeaways from election results
The biggest takeaway from the results of the Assam Assembly elections is that people are not ready to accept the regionalism brand of politics which was aggressively pushed by the two newly floated political parties – AJP and Raijor Dol. The voters cannot be blamed for this scepticism of the regional brand of politics given the dismal past performance of the mascot of regional politics, the AGP, which is now a divided house. The voters saw in the leaders of the two hurriedly-formed parties the greed for power as the prime motive for forming the parties as both parties failed to project before the electorate a united front and a credible agenda not confined to just a few emotive issues.
Another takeaway is that Assam is also gradually heading towards a two-party political system, namely BJP and Congress as other parties are aligning with the two national parties due to their limited sphere of influence amongst core constituencies like tribals and minorities.
Bipartisanship is not a bad phenomenon in itself as major advanced democracies like that of the US and the UK have flourished despite not having a plethora of political parties. In India too, several advanced states in socio-economic indicators like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc have thrived under a two-party political system.
The voters are now more mature in this information age and they have demonstrated their political maturity by preferring development over divisive politics. Even a very highly emotive and vital issue of the Citizenship Act could not persuade the Assamese electorate to think differently. The winners now cannot disappoint the electors.
Rajib Sarma,
Gandhibasti, Guwahati.
Elusive Garga Chatterjee
Sometime back there was a huge uproar in many leading vernacular dailies along with the digital and social media about one self-styled intellectual from West Bengal named Garga Chatterjee. He insulted the Ahom community and the Ahom swargadeo. Interestingly an MLA from AIUDF too passes almost similar comments against our Ahom brothers and sisters. Reverting to Garga Chatterjee, the Government of the day took cognizance of the issue and served a non-bailable warrant against Garga Chatterjee, and accordingly dispatched a police team to Kolkata to arrest him, but they returned empty-handed due to non-cooperation of the West Bengal police. Similar was the scene when a Bihar Police team went to Mumbai to investigate Sushant Singh Rajput's case. Due to non-cooperation by the Mumbai Police, they returned home empty hand.
This sort of lack of cohesion among the police forces of different states of the country due to political compulsion is disturbing. Still, Garga Chatterjee remains elusive.
Dr Ashim Chowdhury,
Guwahati-1.
States' failure
States are responsible for the steep rise in COVID cases and claim that the Centre must preserve the health of all citizens. Smaller countries are shocked to see the scarcity of medical oxygen in India. This had to happen. Our preparedness is sketchy. We are densely populated and lack scientific temperament. Religion always wins over science. How can we think of becoming a superpower?
Chandan Kumar Nath,
Sorbhog.
Wanted crackdown on wholesalers, hoarders
Amid the current surge of COVID-19 cases in the state, a chit-chat of imminent lockdown got across in Guwahati from the beginning of April 2021. In the resultant situation due to this gossip in the town the big dealers and stockists in the wholesale market took advantage and raised prices of staple food items, including onions, potatoes to garner undue profit. The cost of imported fruits from other states also registered a sudden 50 to 100 per cent hike due to such manipulation. The vegetable vendors are the victims of the circumstances as the wholesalers and middlemen who act as a go-between the wholesalers and growers also play a dubious role for price-hike in the retail market. We have already seen newspaper reports with photos of task forces, who are assigned to keep tabs on price hike of essential items, conducting raids in retail markets but there is no let-up yet for the poor consumer. The railways are running routine train services for transportation of essential items from other states and so there is no earthly reason for the dearth of supplies. In this crisis, I feel that the ghosts must be exorcised from the wholesale market to contain prices. So, to allow a breather to the consumers, especially the daily-wage earners, the poor and distressed families I would urge the relevant authority to regularly conduct a crackdown on wholesalers, stockiest and hoarders, in addition, to keep a vigil on the retail market. Yours etc.,
Pannalal Dey,
Guwahati
All's not well with CU
The famed Cotton College of Assam was converted into a state autonomous university in 2017. But unfortunately, the functioning of the university has not been up to the mark since its inception. The Government of Assam constituted a high-level committee to look after various activities of the university. It is not clear whether that committee is still functioning or not. It has been heard that the administrative staff of the university are not at all cooperative with the students. Some of the teachers are also not student-friendly. Moreover, repeated representations of students for some of their problems have not been taken care of, and in many cases, the authorities turn a deaf ear to their genuine grievances. The most important matter, in this case, is that the results of many examinations conducted long ago have not been declared till now, and for that, the future of the students are hanging in the air. Why the authority is not concerned about the careers of the students? May I request the authority concerned to look into the matter seriously and take appropriate action?
Dr P.C.Sarmah,
Jorhat.